What I learned in 2018

It is that time for review posts, looking back at 2018 and thinking about what we learned and what we would change.

I love reviewing what I am doing throughout the year BUT I am a bit of a nostalgic at heart and the year in review always gets me.

Wins:

– 2018 was the most successful in terms of revenue and profit for my business. In cold, hard figures my revenue was a bit above £350K (for my business year the projections are well above the 500K mark!). This was nearly 3 times what I earned in 2017 and I did it with a relatively low advertising spend of £12K. My profits were up too despite making some big investments in staffing, training, video and coaching.

– I invested in some amazing coaches and mentors who helped me to work through my blocks and really step in to who I want to be. These included mindset coaches who helped me get rid of unhelpful emotions and limiting beliefs.

– I wrote and published a best selling book which has got 33 5* reviews on Amazon and brilliant feedback.

– I worked with amazing women worldwide, over 420 women worked with me in one way or another in 2018 – from attending events, to my membership, to accelerate your success to my online courses, to my mastermind. Many of these stayed with me over the year and I am continuing to work with in 2019.

– I was on Good Morning Britain twice, featured in lots of press including: Fabulous magazine, Business insider, Psychologies life labs, the daily mail etc and on at least 10 podcasts..

– I met some really great people who I started to collaborate and build relationships with. I have a strong community of women in business which is brilliant.

– I spoke at Natwest, Birkbeck, Blooming Founders, General Assembly and private events. I ran 12 of my own events and have been booked and paid to speak at events in 2019.

What I learned:

– I decided to streamline what I do and took away online courses from my offering in late 2018, I wanted to focus more on programs that I was present in to give clients more support.

– To trust my gut, if I don’t feel something is right to walk away.

– That not everyone shares my morals and values AND that is okay. To keep being me and to shut out the noise and negativity.

– That being kind and compassionate is the only way I can operate. I don’t need to change my being to be successful and I refuse to do so.

– That I can become obsessive about work which meant I didn’t exercise or see my friends as much as I would have liked. Re-prioritising for 2019.

– That if my heart isn’t in something I won’t get results. A few things bombed in 2018 and it was always due to how I felt and how I showed up.

– That I am the ONLY person responsible for my success, it is so easy to blame others but it gets you no where. Stop complaining and start doing.

The lows:

– My husband worked away every week for the later half of 2018.. It was hard, I missed him, I struggled on my own. My girls missed him. I realised we needed to spend more time together so we re-prioritised our relationship.

– I experienced some weird behaviour and found that some “friends” were completely out for themselves. This luckily only happened twice BUT it made me reflect on how I was. I realised that I can trust too quickly and sometimes this will bite me in the bum! I am happy to accept this will happen as I don’t want to change my nature.

– I had a health scare and it massively impacted my energy, I didn’t share with many people but in hindsight wish that I had as it would explain my weird behaviour! I spent a couple of weeks in bed in tears and pretended everything was okay, it wasn’t.

– I got sucked into the online noise and all the calling out of people. This impacted my mindset negatively and I realised I needed to take a break and limit my time on social media. It reflected how I wanted to show up – I don’t condone bullying and name calling by anyone. Lesson learned!

– I worked too hard at times, I realised on holiday that my kids where waiting for me to finish emails so we could go out for the day. I found it hard to shake the mindset that success = hard work but when I did it changed my life.

I go into 2019 with the most successful quarter ever in my business, great clients, great friends and lots to look forward to. Neither business or life are easy but as my gran used to say it is the grit that makes the pearl.